New Computer for REVIT...

[wboyanton]

Boss gave the "OK" for a new computer more able to preform with REVIT.

Does REVIT support Quad-Cores? or just Duo-cores?

It will be Vista-64

any thoughts?

[mjdanowski]

It generally only supports one core.

[AaronC]

Boss gave the "OK" for a new computer more able to preform with REVIT.

Does REVIT support Quad-Cores? or just Duo-cores?

It will be Vista-64

any thoughts?

We just upgraded a few weeks ago:

AMD Phenom 9950 Quad-Core Processor 2.60 GHz
8 GB RAM
ATI FirePro V5700 Graphics Card
Vista 64-bit running RevitMEP 2009 64-bit (soon to be upgraded to 2010)

I would say Revit MEP 2009 doesn't run THAT much faster than our old systems, but 2010 flies.

[RevitNinja]

Unless you are rendering, what advantage does four 2.6ghz cores give you over a single 3.2 ghz core?

[david_peterson]

My understanding was that the 2010 version was going to use 2 cores, 4 cores may be overkill this year, but next your you never know.
We upgraded last year with a plan of not replacing them for 3 yrs so we bought quad core system that can run either 32 bit or 64 bit and has room for 8 sticks of memory and another processor if we desire.
Currently we run 32 bit xp with the 3 gig switch enacted. We may be upgrading to 64 bit set up later this year.

[AaronC]

My understanding was that the 2010 version was going to use 2 cores, 4 cores may be overkill this year, but next your you never know.
We upgraded last year with a plan of not replacing them for 3 yrs so we bought quad core system that can run either 32 bit or 64 bit and has room for 8 sticks of memory and another processor if we desire.
Currently we run 32 bit xp with the 3 gig switch enacted. We may be upgrading to 64 bit set up later this year.

Yeah, my boss really doesn't like spending money, so getting just 2 of our workstations upgraded was a battle. I figured we should get the best we could now so we wouldn't have to spring for new ones in the future.

[david_peterson]

Yeah, my boss really doesn't like spending money, so getting just 2 of our workstations upgraded was a battle. I figured we should get the best we could now so we wouldn't have to spring for new ones in the future.

An easy way to convince the boss it's in his best interest is to simply carry a stop watch. Every time you have to sit and way for your computer to grind, start the clock, stop when you can work again. At the end of the day, tell him how much wasted time you spent due to slow computer. To be real honest if you have a P4 3.4ghz with enough Ram, and you don't do a ton of rendering, that will work OK. But since you can get the Duo-Core's cheap these days, I'd do it. From what I've learned with the boxes we tested, (unless rendering is your main focus) spend the $$ on Ram and 64 bit set up. Basic Video cards are just find. Don't need anything fancy. Now, if rendering is a main focus, I believe Nvidia I think just came up with a new technology that allow more process to take place on the video card. Or at least that's what I heard.
Just 2 more cents.

[muttlieb]

My understanding was that the 2010 version was going to use 2 cores, 4 cores may be overkill this year, but next your you never know.

Revit is still primarily a single core app, but multi-core processors can improve overall performance due to the fact that they can carry the load of other applications running concurrently. In Revit 2010 multi-threaded hidden line removal for printing has been enabled. I would recommend the fastest Intel quad-core cpu your budget allows.

Now, if rendering is a main focus, I believe Nvidia I think just came up with a new technology that allow more process to take place on the video card. Or at least that's what I heard

At this time, Revit will not use the video card for rendering processes. It is still limited to using up to four cpu processors.

[jbaumann]

Boss gave the "OK" for a new computer more able to preform with REVIT.

Does REVIT support Quad-Cores? or just Duo-cores?

It will be Vista-64

any thoughts?

If you are planning on making the upgrade to 2010 then I suggest Quad core if you can afford it. We have good success running large MEP models with Vista x64, 8 GB of ram and an average Nvidia or ATI video card.

Autodesk just released a new white paper "model_performance_technical_note_revit_2010.pdf" which explains that hidden line removal for printing and a few other processes now take advantage of multiple core/processors. You can download it at the following link if you have a subscription login.

http://subscription.autodesk.com/sp/...74&id=13124782

[ws]

FWIW I have 2 Vista 64 quad core PCs running Revit 2010 64 and RAC 2009 64 previously.

One quad core is a dual dual Xeon machine (not the just-released ones) 3.2GHZ the other is a Core i7 quad core/ 8 thread at 2,9 GHZ

The Core i7 seems quite a bit faster at everything - plus it is supposed to be able to balance loads to the cores better which will help when using single threaded processes - which cad mostly is still.

I always go for the Xeon version processors as they use ECC memory - this time I didn't as the Xeon version wasn't available at the time - and I seem to have a faulty memory module

but Core i7 appears to be a big improvement over previous multi-core architecture.